A Morning in The Life Of...

6.45 am - Small Ironman son runs into our bedroom shouting 'Is it morning is it morning is it morning?'  My usual response: 'It isn't morning until mummy says it is' doesn't cut the mustard anymore. Small Ironman climbs into our bed for a cuddle.   Lies on his back wide awake asking questions about his day and telling us about Tom and Alex and other little friends in a loud non-morning voice.   

6.50 am - Run to Pharmaceutical Cornucopia (PC) on kitchen bench and take one tablet of PSK (which is otherwise known as Trammune or Trametes Versicolor (a kind of common mushroom) and must be eaten 30 mins before food).

6.52 am - Have shower.  Showers are quite fun at moment, with almost no hair.   I don't have to worry about getting it too wet.  Or washing it hardly ever.  And the water feels lovely on my head.  Son sits and talks to me in non-morning voice whilst I shower.  Son has no volume knob, it seems, so I have given up asking him to use inside voice.

7.00 am - Get dressed into clothes laid out night before.  Son very concerned I am dressed before him. 'Are you going to work today?' I tell him going to hospital to have more bad medicine.  'Oh' he says, losing interest immediately.  'Can I watch some TV now?'

7.05 am - Return to PC and take 3 tablets of Reishi, another kind of mushroom.    This is in tablet form because fresh Reishi not cleared to come from Japan yet due to earthquake.  Get son milk to drink whilst the Avengers is on.
 
7.08 am - Make peanut butter on toast for son.   Present toast to son.  Son cries because toast not in exact square shape.   Cut crusts off to make squarer.   Present for second time. Son says he has changed mind and now wants Vegemite and 'yellow butter' on an exact square toast shape.  I ask 'are you serious?' Son laughs demonically, his little kiss curl hanging over his forehead in manner of nursery rhymne boy.

7.12 am - Gargle with some Maldon salt dissolved in water.  This is to prevent ulcers.

7.14 am - Go into daughter's bedroom.  Daughter sound asleep and spread out across bed with bed coverings all askew, university student style.  Daughter is only 8 though.  Tell her time to get up.  Bribe her with toast and raspberry and vanilla jam.  Daughter moans and says not hungry and really really tired.  Wonder what daughter will be like as 13 year old.  Or 18 year old.

7.16 am - Take one tablet of green conifer needle oil.    I take these three times a day.  They prevent thrush and so far have worked really well.

7.18 am - Give Pepper the cat breakfast.    Pepper smells his breakfast disdainfully (it's too cold) and walks away, tail held high.

7.20 am - Ask son why he has not eaten second breakfast.  He says he has changed mind again and doesn't want his square toast.  I say 'I am not a restaurant.  Or a cafe.  Or even a greasy spoon type place desperate for customers.   No more breakfasts'.  Son's bottom lip starts to stick out.  I offer him Greek yogurt with passion fruit. Son smiles and says 'Yummy yes please'.

7.22 am Take Codonopsis.  This is a Chinese herb known as poor man's ginseng, which can strengthen the immune system and help white and red blood cell counts. I take it as an extract dripped into a glass of water.

7.25 am - Re-enter teenage style daughter's room and turn light up really bright and tell her it is definitely absolutely time to get up.   And breakfast is on table and getting cold.

7.27 am - Eat cereal, half heartedly because it doesn't taste of much, just a cardboardy texture.  Drink beetroot and carrot juice.  Appreciate again the magic of the pointless huge juicer my mother gave me 4 years ago which now gets lots of use.

7.30 am - Take little homeopathic ball thing. Suck slowly.  Not sure what this is for, to be perfectly honest. Stare a little resentfully at husband sitting in relaxed fashion at kitchen bench reading IPad.

7.32 am - Do makeup.  Cover freckles with lots of Nars foundation.  Use really excellent Chantecaille magical skin creams for chemo skin.  Think again how much I love Mecca Cosmetica and the lady who has sold me all this great stuff.
7.40 am - Hear husband asking daughter to get out of bed.   Hear husband forcing her to get dressed.  Hear husband spending lots of time picking correct cream socks for her, and getting the seams around the right way and the shoe buckles done up tight enough (otherwise they 'hurt').

7.45 am - Put wig on, ruffle it and smile.

7.50 am - Dress son.  Persuade son that he can't wear Batman, Spiderman, Soldier or Superman costume to kindergarten. Son says loudly 'I am NOT wearing long sleeves ever. I am NEVER cold'.  Allow son to wear shorts and short sleeved T shirt even though quite cold outside.  Grab small backpack shove in lunchbox and dump at door.    Grab daughter's lunch box shove in school bag and dump at door.

7.52 am - Drink lovely coffee made by husband.  Think about how looking forward to sitting down for three hours during chemo.  Notice daughter has not touched her breakfast.  

7.55 am - Assemble handbag must haves including Kindle, IPhone, wallet, book with cancer notes, cards, invoices, receipts, referrals etc.  Put nail polish in bag.  Take nail polish out again, concerned doing nails during chemo might appear flippant.  Decide do not care because never otherwise sit still for long enough to do nails.    

7.57 am - Go into daughter's bedroom to check she is ready to go.  She is sitting on the floor counting her pocket money. 'Mummy will the shops accept pence? What about Bali money?  What about Singapore money? Where can we exchange it?'  Then she shows me the rearrangement of her wardrobe, with lined up shoes in rainbow order.  Then shows me her redecoration of the dolls house, with a new piano room, and an outdoor camping area. Then remember we have forgotten PE bag and Library bag and cello and piano books.  Feel pleased am not dragging all that to school.  Wonder about possible deterioration of daughter's back when she is older.   

8.00 am - Gently heat up one cup of Chinese herbal drink, painstakingly made by me every three days.  This needs to be drunk half an hour after food.  My Chinese doctor has told me the ingredients but as he just wrote out the Chinese names they don't mean much to me.   Helps my digestion no end, however. Drink it quickly because doesn't taste very nice.  Feel pleased taste buds not very effective at the moment.

8.01 am - Kiss all and sundry good bye and drive to East Melbourne for chemo.   

(This morning was brought to you by my homeopath and Chinese Doctor and Percy, Imogen and Martin.)  

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A Blackbird for Birthday Week

We have celebrated two birthdays this week.   Mine (age undisclosed) and the very next day, my son's (four). 

(bionicles in disarray, half cloned and cross bred)

I could uncharitably point out here that my son, by being born three days later than anticipated, rather manages to steal my birthday thunder every year , but the truth is that he makes the week more thrilling, excited as he is about his new age.   In fact, he has talked of little else for months - his new age, how big he will be, how he may one day be bigger than his sister, and so on and so on.

And having birthdays so close allows for some handy comparisons between our two birthdays. 

This was my gift  from my husband.  

Blackbird by Dean Bowen

Look familiar?  I have a Dean Bowen painting on the sidebar of this blog.  If my husband read my blog, which he claims not to, he would know how much I love Dean Bowen's work.    But he doesn't and yet he still picked this painting for me, which makes my heart sing just a little.

This is one of my son's presents.  Yes, Woody talks.  All the time. He has 60 sayings in fact.  And no, it is not annoying in the least.

And finally, birthday food.  This image captures both types:

I made the robot cake from the new Women's Weekly Classic Children's Birthday Cake Book which has just been reprinted.  (If you would like to see an example of the special place this book has in many Australians' hearts, see Melbourne Gastronome's post on this book).

The robot needs a bit of back support, but apart from that my son deemed him sufficiently robot like.   They are quite a lot of effort to ice aren't they?  I felt as if I had completed a particularly difficult test when I finished him up. 

In the background, grown up birthday food: Riesling and chocolate gingerbread.

I had mixed feelings about this birthday. I didn't feel a glorious rushing gratitude to be alive, but I did have a quiet and calm day, and thought about how lucky I am.

My allegedly so called bad chemo has now ended after 9 weeks and I have survived it apart from an endless cold \ throat thing almost certainly brought on by an in hindsight possibly foolish decision to fly to Sydney for the day for work last week.    

Next week I start 12 weeks of weekly Taxol and Herceptin, both delivered intravenously.   This is a disheartening thought, but apparently Taxol is largely bearable.  

Weird Chemo Side Effect No 1:  my freckles have come back.  It is no exaggeration to say that I have not put my face in the sun for 25 years.  Two weeks ago something must have happened to my skin pigmentation, and all those little freckles popped back onto my face. I guess they were always there, and must have just faded.    Makes me look a bit like Anne of Green Gables.  Or Tom Sawyer....

Interesting Chemo Fact No 1:  Taxol is not chemical at all.  It derives from the Pacific Yew tree.  Now who thought to see if that tree had medical benefits? 


xoxo 

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No Lucite or Nigella just Chemo

I am definitely not turning this blog into a Cancer Blog.  If I was going to do that then I would post every day and make a book out of it, like this lady (thanks for the tip Lou I have now read her book and 'enjoyed' it, if that is a word that one can use given the subject matter!).   But I don't feel the need to document every single up \ down, needle in\ out, drugs-Chinese herbs-homeopathic remedies taken \ swallowed.   

Having said that, this blog is about both stuff I like and stuff that happens to me, and BC is certainly part of the latter . And it is sure taking up quite a lot of time at the moment. 

I have had quite a few questions about it so I thought it might be interesting to explain chemotherapy and how it works for me.    To make it more palatable I have interspersed some current garden and around the house pictures.  (Every garden in Melbourne is lush and verdant at the moment. This has been the wettest and coldest summer ever, with almost half our yearly rainfall in three months.   Good for the plants, and great for our water storage).  

We planted lavender here to fill up a dead spot in the front garden and it is thriving

As someone has said to me, chemotherapy is like using a tank to kill an ant.  For me, it is overkill in every sense of the word because no further cancer has been found in me.  There may however be microscopic rogue cells floating around which are too small to detect, and that is what the chemotherapy nukes.  And as far as I am concerned, the stronger and the more powerful the chemo, the better.  And that was my specific request to the oncologist. I keep asking him if the chemo is strong enough.  He just laughs and says 'yes'.

This is the smallest of our three grass trees - again these are doing well. Note they are in a built up hill, which lowers the risk of them developing a dislike for the soil environment

Here are four  things about chemo I have learned in my crash course :

1. Contrary to many people's opinions, the chemo chemicals do not 'build up' in your system over months, making the symptoms worse and worse.  In fact, the chemo itself is gone from your system in the first few days.  What lingers are the side effects which are caused by those chemicals.  These may lengthen a bit.  The other old wives tale is that 'it gets worse'.  In most cases, it doesn't get worse.  In fact the first chemo can be the worst because one is so nervous about it.  

2. Everyone's chemo experience is different. I think pregnancy is a good analogy.  We all know people who had the worst pregnancy ever - constant vomiting or nausea or reflux or insomnia etc.  Sometimes that pain is real, other times one person will feel the same pain so much more strongly than another.   I believe childbirth and raising children give one a resilience and strength which we don't even know we have until we need to call on it.  I for one have always suspected I have a reasonably high pain threshold.  I say this because breaking my big toe 10 years ago was more painful than two drug free labours.   So whilst talking to others is useful in a general sense you have to bear in mind that they may be bedridden whilst you may be feeling off but able to be up and about.   To repeat: everyone is different.  

3.   Never ever ever read the Internet.  A lot of the information out there is from the US and UK where the treatment protocols are different.   Also, there are many posts on side effects felt by people.  This can be very scary.  See 2 above.    So now my first phase of chemo is going okay I have something new to worry about - the second round (Taxol) which according to many American women can give wrenching bone aches.   But really, I am me, and they are them.  It shouldn't really be relevant to me if Ann from Annapolis in Maryland has a terrible time with her chemo.  I may not have the same experience.  

4. Forget your memory of the uncle who did chemo 15 years ago and spent 7 months vomiting.  The nurses have explained to me that whilst the chemo drugs are largely the same from that time, what has changed is management of the side effects and the effectiveness of the anti-nausea drugs.  10 years ago my hospital would have to admit many people two days after chemo suffering from dehydration and mouth ulcers.  They now tell you to drink at least 2 litres of water the day of chemo and following and the admission rate is much much lower. 

These are those autumn coloured hydrangeas.  I would prefer the blue and white but these are looking pretty good at the moment. 

So, to the chemotherapy itself.   I do this at an oncology suite in my hospital in East Melbourne. It is a large sunny room with padded recliner style armchairs arranged around the wall.  There is a waiting area, where you check in and wait to be called through for a blood test and to take your anti nausea pill no 1.   The blood test checks for white blood cell count. If it is too low, you cannot do chemo that day.   If it is at an okay level, chemo can proceed. 

I am doing 'dose dense' chemo which means I have chemo every two weeks instead of three or four weeks.  Not because I am in any kind of hurry but this has had good results on 'young' people like me in New York and other locations, and it means the first phase is done and dusted in 8 weeks. 

the maple tree leaves are very multiplicitous this year.

The only way my body can take the dose timing is for me to have an injection of something called Neulastin every two weeks.  This amazing drug gets into your bone marrow and builds up your white blood cell count.   This does cause bone aches but I haven't found them to be that bad so far. 

There are two interesting aspects to this injection.  First, I decided to do it myself (as it has to be done the day after chemo and I couldn't be bothered going back to a hospital or to a local doctor).  I thought it would be a good skill to learn.  You have to inject it into your stomach (into a little pinch of fat - OF COURSE that was hard for me to find!).  If you are diabetic or have done IVF, none of this will be new to you.  Not such a big deal really.    

The second aspect worth mentioning is the cost of this injection.   This is the first and last time you will ever see a price tag here:

Yes, you read it correctly.   $1971, not $19.71.   I believe the price might come down if it was more widely able to be used by cancer patients - the PBS is covering mine but (this is for anyone of influence in the Federal Government who may be reading) it should be automatically available to all who want it without having to wait.   

(As an aside, my second chemo session started with a bang. Just outside the hospital I managed to drive straight through a red light in front of 3 manned police cars.   I slowed down waiting for them to catch me and fine me.  My mother said 'Okay - I will burst into tears and you tell them you are having  chemo'.  But they either didn't see me or didn't care so I missed perhaps my best Cancer Excuse Opportunity so far.)

Once you are cleared in blood count terms, you pick a lovely armchair and they hook you up to an IV with saline and anti nausea drugs no 2. And then they drip drip drip the chemo into you. The first, Andramyacin is bright red.  This is the bad stuff.  The nurse has to stand over you whilst it is going in to make sure it is going into the vein and not the surrounding tissue.  

Then comes Cyclophosphamide, which takes a bit longer as the bag is bigger.  

All up, done in two to three hours. I spend my time talking to whoever has come with me, or reading my Kindle, or looking (not too obtrusively I hope) at the others around me, trying to imagine their lives and what they did and thought about and loved before this happened to them.  

It goes without saying that cancer does not play favourites.  A wide range of people are here - the burly tattooed man who sits quietly with his aged mother, the elegant silver haired cashmere wearing lady, men sitting with their wives, doing the crossword or staring wordlessly into space, a young girl who appeared one week with her tiny baby and husband, looking tired and drawn (the next time I saw her she looked fantastic), youngish and older men, in suits and shorts, and women in suits, wigs, scarves, high heels, trainers and everything in between.  On Monday a women receiving chemo mentioned that her husband had lymphoma.  I thought: how much bad luck can one person have?

Aren't these beautiful?  I bought them this morning and instead of the usual round bowl thought I would use a tall vase.  

Having said all that, it is not a depressing place.  The nurses are incredible, and laugh and joke but are always super professional.  Almost all the other patients look completely normal and healthy, like me.  

Then come the side effects.  For me they have been mostly just nausea and towards the end of the week, tiredness. I fall asleep on the couch at 8.30 pm, and am going to bed early.   Not sleeping that well but that is another matter.   And I seem to have become a bit anaemic this week so I am eating lots of red meat and beetroot and dried peaches. Oh and my hair of course is still falling out.   Not planning to mention that again.  

This fireplace is still looking a bit too zen - one day that large gilt mirror will appear from the sky, I hope

It is not unbearable, have to go to bed pain.   For me, it is manageable pain, which definitely fades if you are distracted.   And of course there are so many anti-nausea pills and other things to take. I have gone from being someone who, in deference to my Scottish Protestant heritage,  never even took a Panadol for a headache,  to popping literally dozens of different pills a week, sometimes, because of the homeopathic stuff, it is more than 15 per day!  

My biggest fear, as a lawyer, was what is called 'chemo brain'.  I was told that this can last for months and months and the thought of having difficulty processing my thoughts was quite horrifying.   Whilst I have had some fogginess, it seems to come and go.  It is a bit reminiscent of a red wine hangover, without the headache and the memory of a fun time the night before.  At this stage, to my great relief, this part of it does not seem to be permanent. 

Current bedside reading, many half finished alas.  I am looking forward to the Amy Chua book about Chinese mothers. I would like to be a Chinese mother in some ways. 

I do hope this has demystified some of the chemo fables.  I was quite terrified going into this treatment stage, and for any of you unfortunate enough to do it too,  it will hopefully not be as bad as your imagination might make out. 


xoxo

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Lemony Snickert

According to Maggie Beer, wonderful South Australian cook and 'I wish she was my grandmother' lady, you either have a sweet palate or a sour palate.  Hers is sour.  So is mine. I love lemon lime tasting food.   And chemotherapy is making me want it even more (partly I think because my taste buds are a bit shot).   My son also has a lemony palate.  He is quite interested in licking the cut side of a lemon and making a Lemon Face. 

So I have been doing a bit of lemon \ lime cooking.  

Last week I made this simple cucumber lime relish thing.  Just diced cucumber, chopped mint, some salt and pepper, a tiny bit of chopped red chilli, and a good slashing of lime juice.  It went beautifully with a Northern Indian chicken curry I made.  ('Making' at the moment also includes buying pre-cooked from Tartine up the road.  Much as I love to cook there are limits to what I can do when everything smells slightly gross.) 

Then I made this polenta lemon cake from Nigella Lawson's Kitchen. It took a while for me to get into this cookbook.  I think it was something to do with the font and layout -   picky, I know but it just didn't grab me.   But revisiting it has paid off.   Nigella describes this as a cross between one of those polenta-ey Italian cakes and an English lemon drizzle cake.  A truly jolie laide cake.

Even my daughter loved it:

And the cake would not have been possible without my favourite new implement. I can barely believe I have survived without one for so long.  A Microblade, invented by a clever American and the only thing for zesting. I confess, I am in love with this thing. I clean it carefully and put it lovingly back into its plastic case.   You can also use it for parmesan and coconut.

It seems a bit odd to be writing of lemony recipes when there is so much devastation in Christchurch.  I have been there a few times, for conferences, and once on holidays where we stayed here. I am not sure if it is even still standing. 

(The Northern Club, Christchurch) 

My heart is very heavy for all New Zealanders today and for all those who have lost loved ones and may be waiting for terrible confirmation of more deaths.   It is almost too much for one country to bear. 

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The Hair Question

When I was diagnosed with BC, my very first question to the surgeon was 'Will I lose my hair'.  (Not - will I die (no) or is the surgery complicated (yes)).  And then to my oncologist, it was 'Will I lose my hair?'.  And then to the oncology nurse, it was 'Will my hair fall out and if so when?'.  And then the same question to the Internet.  Which gave me 99,500 answers.  And the answers were all the same (an emphatic unequivocal yes, within 2 to 3 weeks of chemo starting). 

I have had 8 weeks now to prepare myself for the hair loss, and I cut about 20 cm off my hair four weeks ago.  But even so, when I endured my first round of chemo, and didn't feel quite as bad as my vivid imagination made out, after two weeks just a little tiny part of me deep down thought: maybe I will be the one rare person whose hair doesn't fall out.  

I have been obsessively studying other people's hair.  Have you noticed how newsreader  hair always looks like a wig?  I have.  In fact anything which is very styled and neat and clean looks a bit wig like.   I know I should say I couldn't care less what other people think of my hair or lack thereof.  But that is just not possible to do all the time.  

But reality bit this week and my hair has been coming out in horrendous handfuls.    So there is nothing for it but to cut\shave it all off.    Which I am doing today.  

 (me with hair and daughter) 

And then there is the question of what to do next.   I feel very strongly that whilst what I want is important, there is a little matter of my family who have to look at me. 

And you can be certain that my family does have opinions.  And quite strong ones. This is what my daughter said about it (verbatim) 'Mummy you have to get a wig otherwise I will COMPLETELY FREAK OUT'.   
And then there are clients at work.  I don't want to shove my condition in their face.  

So off to the wig shop I went to be served by the nicest nicest lady who said things like 'But you are gorgeous, you will look amazing with no hair' (not true but her sincerity was impressive).  She sold wigs to Kyle Minogue and Delta Goodrem when they had cancer.  And I do like mine.  It's not the same as my real hair but I think it will do.  

The other option of course is scarves. 

I was a big wearer of scarves in the 1990s.  Today I have dug them out and ironed them.  Yesterday I went online and bought a Dolce and Gabbana leopard print scarf on sale.  Supposedly authentic but for $60 I have my suspicions.

(Furla scarf bought in Venice 10 years ago)

(Gucci bought 14 years ago)

(two Hermes scarves given to me by my mother years ago.  Not sure these colours are that flattering but anyway). 

(some Vixen scarves) 

And I think I rather like the idea of being a bit gypsy like and giving my scarves a new lease on life.   And I am glad now that I didn't copy Ally's idea of framing my Hermes' scarves.   Time will tell whether I will be able to wear a blue and green scarf with horses on it on my bald head.


xoxo

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Red Poison (and some Swimming in the Sea)

My oncologist gave me a leave pass to go on our long planned summer beach holiday in the Central Coast of NSW where we rented a house for a week.   

Although it was a bit shorter than we had planned, and meant driving 843 km in one day so we could return in time to start my chemo on Monday, it was worth it.  (Important note: such a drive can be challenging when one's son says 'Are we nearly home' after 5 minutes in the car but I was sensibly advised us to buy little portable DVD players - they are cheap now - and this fixed the problem and produced silence for most of the journey).   

It was worth spending a week gazing at this view:

To sit on this beach (more of Jane on The Beach below) and watch my daughter, far braver than I, master the art of the boogie board, and my son, previously with a visceral fear of the sea, master that fear and begin to love the water, was worth it.   There is something so fundamentally pure about the feel of sand under our feet, and the warm wind in our faces.  It is truly medicine for one's soul.  

I may have mentioned here before that I have pale burny skin.  Skin which burns even after SPF30 cream is slathered all over it.  I have spent many summers in my childhood sitting on a beach covered in towels to mask my bad sunburn of the day before.  Now of course, every child, including ours, wears a Lycra top thingy (called a rashie I think) to prevent that.    

The upside of my pale burny skin is that I might have fewer wrinkles than I otherwise theoretically might have had if I had spent the last 25 years in the sun.   The downside is the sitting on the beach thing.  Which I did during this holiday, sitting fully clothed, like a strange Edwardian person possibly transplanted in a time machine who doesn't understand she is at the beach in 2011.   It was however worth it, again, to watch the children frolic and scream with delight.  

I had to include a picture of this hilarious sign which is still making me laugh as I type this:

If you click on the picture you can see that this pleasant flat beach with reasonably low key surf is in fact a Den of Danger, potentially filled with neck breaking hazards, sharks, jellyfish and extreme wave action.  Oh and there may even be a giant exclamation mark out there waiting to trip you up.   This is what we lawyers call a disclaimer.    It did not of course put anyone off going into the sea.   I wonder if other countries have things like this?  I have only ever seen them in New South Wales.  

Today I started my first round of 'dense dose' chemotherapy.   I sat in a lovely comfortable chair in the lovely comfortable oncology suite listening to Boz Scaggs on the piped music and received my dose of bright red and clear poisons plus enough follow up anti nausea drugs to stock a pharmacy.   This first round goes for 6 or 8 weeks (can't remember at this point in time) and is the worst in terms of side effects.   Second round should may be a bit easier.  

It is quite surreal sitting here waiting for those endlessly explained side effects to kick in.   But I have been doing some reading.  Quite a lot actually.   

I have been given a lot of wise counsel, as you would expect.  And it is a bit repetitive I know but I thank you all.  I am slowly working my way through emails....... still... 

In terms of advice, simple is good, I think, and as a kind man said to me in an email last week:  'Jane, be calm and strong'.  And that works for me. 

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Singing in the Rain

Life isn't about waiting for the storms to pass

It's about learning to dance in the rain.

A kind stranger emailed me this anonymous quote.   I have been thinking about what it means quite a lot.  

I was blessed during the days I spent in hospital by some suprisingly acceptable television.   A few Hitchcock films, some Grey's Anatomy at 3 am and then this, my favourite film, Singing in the Rain.  When was the last time you stood in the rain like this?  I hardly ever did it, mostly from vanity to stop my hair going frizzy.   Well, soon enough I will have no hair, so standing or singing in the rain will present no vanity issues at all.
 

So two operations (with Christmas in between), a New Year's Eve in a hospital bed, countless scans, x-rays, tests, and lots of poking, prodding and painkillers and a full 8 days in a small room later, I am back home.  And in case one needs any proof that home is better than hospital, here goes:

(gardenias from home by my hospital bed, which did scent the room very nicely for days)

(the real thing on our front verandah)

(chair and window in my second hospital room.  You can just see the corner of the Chinese water torture style ticking clock which my husband had to remove from the wall on the shelf)

(chair and trees at home) 

It has occurred to me that we spend a lot of our lives waiting.  Waiting to finish studying, waiting to meet the right person, waiting to fall pregnant, waiting to get that perfect job \ promotion \ deal \ opportunity. 

For me, I will try living in the now.  Within reason of course. It is absurd to suggest that you cannot think of the future, or plan or look forward.  If I were to only live for this minute, I would be very overweight, and possibly an alcoholic. 

But you can go to extremes.  Part of my old life was full of lists, plans, projects to manage, things to do, tick off, complete, arrange, sort out.  I would lie awake at night thinking of the things I had to do the next day.  I don't think I was stressed about this.  But I liked to have things clear in my head and it was becoming a dreadful self perpetuating habit, which meant that I was over thinking absolutely everything constantly.   I still have this habit.... But I am hoping that my brain can be trained to calm down.  

I have received some amazing things from generous friends, aquaintances and complete strangers.  Your words and thoughts have buoyed me.  Which is strange, because as I have said to several people, I don't particularly care what most other people think.  So who would have thought that so much positivity could help me?  But it does.  Interestingly, in one of the many guides to cancer I have received, one of them is a little pamphlet to help friends and family.  One of the things it advises friends and family not to say is 'be positive' because it may make one feel as if one can't complain or articulate how one really feels.  I think this is a bit extreme.  One of the problems with a diagnosis like this is that it can be tempting to obsessively think about it all the time. That cannot be healthy. And if you have to think about it, think about it, to the extent you can, as a challenge and opportunity.   That, I think, is good advice from anybody. 

So, thank you all, again.

(this arrived from Seymour, a country town north of Melbourne, from a friend of my mother's)

(this turned up from a friend in Paris) 

(this was part of a wonderful bundle of things from Maxabella)

(this came with many other items from Jennie at Posie Patchwork)

I re-read this book over two days last week.  

Of course when I last read this book I shuddered at the chemo and surgery descriptions and thought thank God that will never happen to me. 

This time around I read it with an eye to tips, coping mechanisms and some perspective from the great survivor himself.  When Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996, he was toast.   Even his doctors, giving him survival percentages of 40% privately thought those odds were generous.   It is tempting to think his extreme fitness helped his fight. Or his determination.  But as he says, brave and positive people die from cancer every day.  Whilst not so nice negative people survive to complain another day.   Go figure.  Life is a great lottery.   The being positive I think is perhaps not so much about survival, but about making the experience more manageable, and giving one skills to deal with the post treatment phase, which I believe can be just as challenging as chemotherapy.  

Lance's foundation, Livestrong, fights to improve the lives of those affected by cancer.  Looking at this very well resourced and clearly set out site, it is quite amazing to see how far it has come since it was first established in 1997.  

Every day I learn about the amazing people, volunteers and professionals, who work to help cancer sufferers.   It is a whole new world for me but one which is not dark and grim, but life affirming and uplifting.  

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